Will FG be able to compete with Roll20 1 million useres with a steep learning curve

[Tabulazero]

I come from Roll20 where I GM Lost Mine of Phandelver as a Pro-License holder. So yes... you could say I am heavily involved in Roll20.

Frankly, the next campaign I am going to run will be on Fantasy Grounds even if it is still in 3.2 version.

Fantasy Ground is so much more ergonomic and user friendly than Roll20. While you may not have the breadth of the huge number of game systems running in Roll20, you have far more depth. What Fantasy Ground does, it does it better than Roll20 in my very personal experience. For 5e, it is simply a no brainer.

What it lack is dynamic lighting but even without it, it is still an easier interface to navigate than Roll20.

The Unity engine when it will come out will build on that.

Will it be able to compete ? Yes because it is already is and is a better product in my very personal opinion.

Now if Wizard of the Coast/Hasbro had any brain, they should simply buy SmiteWorks once someone/somewhere in the higher echelons realizes that, as their player base is getting older and has less free time to play (its called "having kids"), it tend to gravitate toward virtual tabletops.

[ArcebU]

From my experience most folks who use R20 do so out of familiarity or just having all their stuff on R20.

Another thing is that FG doesn't really work for some people out of the box. As in their is a level of knowledge about navigating your router and firewall as well as general upkeep before you can enjoy FG.

Another hurdle is the pricing. When people look at the ultimate edition they think that it comes with everything only to later realize the modules are separate. Its largely unclear that the bulk of the price point is not needed at all especially for Steam users... I can't begin to count how many times I've had to disambiguate the demo version versus standard versus ultimate.

Ultimate is if you plan to DM.

Not knocking R20 though, I'm glad for all the options out there, yet FG and R20 on what they offer and the ease of use are miles apart. One thing R20 does well though is in game music.

[dracklor]

I'm not sure, I mean I had more trouble with Roll 20 than FG. Went looking for a VTT when it got to be too much trouble getting my standard group together to play (people moving due to work, or the like).

Though part of that may be because I am always the GM for my group, so I just shelled out for the Ultimate (several of my players were being cheapskates and refused to get normal licenses when we started).

I never thought I wouldn't have to get the books, though I will admit that figuring out the fan made modules to get things like Shadowrun, Earthdawn, or Star Wars working was enough of a pain that I decided to just run 5E and later Pathfinder (the fan extensions are awesome, I am just too lazy to go to the trouble of making new content when there is so much premade stuff on the store for other systems).

[Myrdin Potter]

My virus protection has flagged the updater several times and quarantined it. Moon Wizard has posted on it just about every update, as the updater updates itself and that behavior is flagged. It is easy to solve if it does happen.

I look at the depth of the DLC store, and I can tell which of the two main VTT has the most support, and that is Fantasy Grounds. The user interface is a old enough that it is pre "windows standards", but Roll20 looks like a browser / standard and then breaks down and is actually harder to run a game with.

Roll20 is also not really free and with them charging almost twice the price for DLC and still not having all the WoTC materials, you really end up spending more for less there.

[Valatar]

I've played both, my assessment is that FG has a steeper initial wall to climb due to its UI, but once that hurdle is crossed it's easier to use. Roll20 looks friendlier on the face of things, but once you get into it you hit one layer of clunky after another. I'm also allergic to subscription models, and the fact that I'd have to pay eternally for access to Roll20's features immediately turned me off from it.

That said, it's always going to have a large chunk of market share in the free users. There are plenty of GMs out there who flat out will never spend a dime on a VTT, and those people will never be FG customers; they'd rather work around the limitations of Roll20's non-subscriber tier than pay for something better.

[Caelen]

My group is in the process of switching from Roll20 to FG. We started on Roll20 because it had free options, and eventually I upgraded to Roll20's Pro level to give my group the extra features. I've been at the Pro level since early 2014, so about 3 and a half years. Now we're much more involved with just 5th edition D&D, and Roll20 is sorely lacking in that department. It doesn't even have the PHB content available yet. That one lacking feature, and the price point they put all of their 5e content at (about double FG's), are the main reasons we're making the switch. All that said, Roll20 does some fantastic things that FG doesn't. Custom macros and roll templates are some of them, which my group used heavily. We also used the very detailed dice rolling engine to pull off some impressive single-click nested query multi dice rolls. For example: a single smite evil button that asks you what level of spell slot you're using, if the target is an undead or fiend, and if the attack is a critical or not. It then calculated and output the correct dice roll into the chat. Maybe this is possible in FG, and I'm still new and haven't discovered how to do this, but with Roll20 it was always easy to see where I could build these sorts of creations. I'm sure I'll get that involved with FG now as well, figuring out how to write my own extensions or modules, but Roll20 really has a much shallower learning curve.

I plan to continue to support Roll20, and I'll probably go back to it if my group wants to try something that FG doesn't support. I'm with FG for the long haul too, now that I've gone all in for the Ultimate license and 5e bundle. FG really has the depth and breadth of 5e content that I want. Both platforms are good. They're just different. That's a good thing.

[Luthbel]

The learning curve thing is totally relative. I´ve been using FG (GMing and playing) for about 3 years now. I understand it quite well, and me or my players never had too much trouble with the classic or new features.
In the other hand, I´ve been playing Roll20 for about the same amount of time, and I still feel I don´t fully understand the interface and options.

[damned]

The biggest challenges to FG in comparison to Roll20 from where Im sitting are:

1. Ease of connectivity - whilst many people have no issues connecting with FG many do and I suspect a very large number of those leave after X mins of unsuccessful attempts
2. Roll20 has better exposure due to its greater numbers of users which is largely due to...
3. Roll20s free option
4. The perception that FG is for D&D and Pathfinder only

Firewall issues can be worked out in most cases but I really look forward to (for SmiteWorks sake) when they have a brokered or server based connection option
FG continues to get better exposure but is still shaded by the Roll20 exposure
I personally am happy to pay a fair price for software and IP. Competing on price when one player is already at $0 doesnt sound work well in a niche industry
I play lots of different game systems on MoreCore

[Full Bleed]

Custom macros and roll templates are some of them, which my group used heavily.

I'm not all that familiar with Roll20's macro system... but I understand the appeal (as I am very familiar with Maptool's macro system). It is an area (i.e. a "non-scripting", high-level macro option) that FG could certainly benefit from. Though, to be honest, I've never heard the developers indicate that such a thing will ever be available. They seem fairly married to the LUA scripting/extension system.

We also used the very detailed dice rolling engine to pull off some impressive single-click nested query multi dice rolls. For example: a single smite evil button that asks you what level of spell slot you're using, if the target is an undead or fiend, and if the attack is a critical or not. It then calculated and output the correct dice roll into the chat. Maybe this is possible in FG, and I'm still new and haven't discovered how to do this, but with Roll20 it was always easy to see where I could build these sorts of creations. I'm sure I'll get that involved with FG now as well, figuring out how to write my own extensions or modules, but Roll20 really has a much shallower learning curve.

I think you're going to be pleasantly surprised with how FG can handle such a thing. In the 5e game I play in we have a paladin who, as you might imagine, smites quite regularly. You can build various types of smites (by spell slot level)... and FG can automatically calculate/roll the critical damage based on your attack roll... and account for whether it's undead/fiend or susceptible to radiant damage, etc. Be sure to check out the "5e effects" threads to see how you can build these types of things. I suppose one could argue that their "effects" system and options are kind of a pseudo macro language (insofar as building powers/weapons/items/spell strings to tap into the more powerful built in functionality.)

I plan to continue to support Roll20, and I'll probably go back to it if my group wants to try something that FG doesn't support. I'm with FG for the long haul too, now that I've gone all in for the Ultimate license and 5e bundle. FG really has the depth and breadth of 5e content that I want. Both platforms are good. They're just different. That's a good thing.

If 5e is your game and you're all-in on their core 5e content and are willing to do a little leg work to get up to speed... I think you're going to safely replace Roll20 as your goto.

You *are* going to have to wait for FGUnity to get lighting, line-of-sight, and native 64 bit support... but it really is looking like it will deliver in that regard.

[rob2e]

Thanks for the interest and questions.

Fantasy Grounds and SmiteWorks is doing very well. Our company and our revenue continue to trend upwards and our popularity is growing steadily. We clearly have a different business model than Roll20 but we are happy with it. It allows us to continue to release new content, grow our users and increase our staff over time. We also coordinate well with our community developers, which now includes more than 60 paid developers. We think that we stack up very favorably against all other competition at this point. There are areas we would like to improve and we are continuing to work on improving those features and adding new features and content. We have a little over 80K users in total. Our forum membership is growing steadily and closing in on 60K members. We have an unknown number of free users.

One of these changes is Fantasy Grounds Unity, or FGU. We've been working on this behind the scenes for the last several years and we still have lots of work to do. While it's important to know where a company is headed, we think people should decide on Fantasy Grounds based on what it can do today. When FGU comes out, it will just make the decision to choose FG even better. Until we announce an ETA, you shouldn't make your decision based on what FGU will add.

Once FGU is available

1. There will be an upgrade fee for existing licenses.
2. We plan to make the upgrade fee a Pay-what-you-want style with a minimum level. We don't expect "Free" to be an option. We estimate $10 or $15 to be the base level upgrade fee you can choose. Upgrades have always been free in the past (just like 3.3.2 that released this week) but I don't believe we've ever said FGU would be free.
3. Suggested upgrade tiers would be based on usage and the age of your current license. We "may" give away free license upgrades to brand new buyers. Our suggested tiers for Ultimate licenses will likely be $15/$30/$45/$60 for each year of age of the license, respectively.
4. All add-ons/DLC will be compatible. You won't have to rebuy all the D&D stuff, Savage Worlds stuff, etc.
5. Older DLC will not immediately have new features but we will begin adding in features to DLC in order of popularity

If you want to see how we think FG stacks up against Roll20, please take a look at the VTT comparison chart I recently updated. You can find it on the homepage under the Features menu.
https://www.fantasygrounds.com/forum...unds-vs-Roll20

We offer a 30-day money back guarantee on all licenses, purchases and subscriptions. It's safe to try it out and see for yourself. If you have any questions once you get started, please post them to the forums and I think you'll find that the community is very helpful and welcoming.

Doug, should mark Dynamic line of sight as "In development"?